Monday, May 6, 2013

2013 Big Brew Event on Calder Plaza: The Boss' Recap

By Steve Siciliano

The weather was perfect, the truck with the brewing water showed up on time, the buildings surrounding the Calder Plaza are still standing and Coldbreak Brewing’s custom-built six-manifold chilling station worked admirably. In other words, the major concerns that caused me a sleepless night on the eve of the first annual Siciliano’s sponsored Big Brew on Calder Plaza never came to pass. There were a few minor hiccups of course—hiccups are inevitable when putting on an event of this size and scope—but in the coming weeks we’ll do some hindsight evaluation and figure out the ways that we can make the second annual Big Brew at the Calder even better.

As I was visiting with the brewing teams on Saturday I was amazed by how everyone was so excited to be a part of this event. That alone made all the planning, hard work and that sleepless night worthwhile. The Siciliano’s team did the planning but in the end it was the forty-eight brewing teams that should receive the major recognition for making this event what I consider to be a huge success.

I would like to thank Grand Rapids mayor George Heartwell for taking the time to visit with the brewers and for participating in the country-wide toast to the culture of homebrewing.

Special thanks to Boyd Culver and the Coldbreak Brewing team and to Greg Masck for his truly invaluable assistance. We couldn’t have pulled this off without them.